The temporal order of phonemes determines the meaning of individual words in spoken language. When an alphabetic writing system is used, this temporal order is converted into spacial order. Previous research has indicated that less skilled readers from both the adult and child populations require more time to encode spatial location information than do highly skilled readers. We propose to use masking studies to investigate the encoding of various types of information during the initial stage of visual information processing. From these studies, we hope to be able to determine: 1) Whether less skilled readers show a general encoding deficit or a specific deficit for spatial information and 2) Whether obtained deficits are peripheral or central in nature. We hypothesize that the role of perception in reading has been underestimated because the perception of spatial location, so critical with an alphabetic writing system, has largely been overlooked. Reading, perhaps more than aay other visual activity, requires a continous integration of item information and spatial location information.